I’ve railed against interruptive marketing time after time in this space. The purpose of this blog is to promote the need for us to stop finding new ways to just “get eyeballs” and instead create advertising that people actually find valuable. But to prove the concept, it is important to continually test it. Let’s see if Zappos can pass the test with air-travel advertising.

Air travel is becoming a huge target of brilliant inventors’ attempts to make a buck by bombarding us with more advertising. Air travelers are certainly a great target for their efforts; they have higher incomes and need to make frequent decisions about where they stay or visit. And, most importantly, they are trapped in small places like security lines and airplane seats for hours—with nothing to do but stare at advertisements. As a result, we’ve seen ads arrive on tray tables, overhead storage bins, and even barf bags.  A company called Ad-Air is buying up land near runways to host football-field-sized banner ads.

So it is no surprise that someone has figured out how to turn the lowly security bin into an advertising medium. A company called SecurityPoint Media has been written up in Advertising Age and USA Today for its new, growing service. The company splits the revenue with the host airport, and the bins are approved for TSA use. The company claims that several million people per month see the advertising, and they have received no complaints so far.

Research has proven that airport travelers consist of a highly sought-after demographic that includes early adopters and decision makers.  There is no other airport marketing platform today that ensures your message meets the eye.” — SecurityPoint Media

During a training I was giving this week, someone in the audience mentioned that they had recently seen an ad for the online shoe store Zappos.com in these bins. It was memorable because it included cute copy and seemed extremely relevant (see above image). After all, what better time to talk shoes than when you’re asking someone to take them off and put them into a tray? But let’s test to see whether or not this is meaningful marketing.

Marketing

While we cannot get inside the heads of management, one would suppose that Zappos.com, a releatively new online retailer, has a business objective of driving awareness. The company likely sees tactics like this as a way to make a big impact without spending giant bucks on TV. Zappos says that the program is a success.  According to its senior marketing manager, Andy Kurlander:

We feel that this is a highly targeted venue to promote our brand. Each person getting on a plane is guaranteed to view our message multiple times. Plus, with shoes in hand, it’s the perfect instance to remind them they’ve been meaning to make time to buy a new pair. Why not Zappos?”

Meaning

Here’s where I think the Zappos example breaks down. We believe that meaningful advertising must do two things: First,  people must choose to engage in the ad. The Zappos ads, though, are more interruptive than engaging. The Zappos ad is a kind of “gotcha” surprise ambush. Second, the ad unit itself must add value to people’s lives. This might hold true, but just barely. The Zappos ad offers very light humor with lines such as “Place Shoes Here,” which can be a welcome diversion in the slow death march through the scanner line.

Conclusion

Is the Zappos.com security-bin marketing successful? Probably so. Is it meaningful? Not really. I believe new media opportunities like this tend to have a very short life span. The first ad units surprise us, and if they are clever and relevant (like Zappos), they can even delight us. But companies like SecurityPoint Media are not restricting themselves to clever, relevant advertisers, so those of us who trudge through the aiport each week will see more and more of them until they, too, become just another piece of ignored wallpaper along our journey from City A to City B.

I will be the first to admit that our concept of “meaningful marketing” is not an exact science. One of the main reasons we have launched this blog is to generate a conversation about what is meaningful and what is not. Clever outdoor advertising is one example that I go back and forth on.

I don’t mean the billboards that are plastered everywhere along the highways, on buses, and even on gas pumps and airline tray tables. For an outdoor ad to even have a chance to be effective marketing, it needs to grab your attention. I believe that to be meaningful, outdoor ads must both get your attention and reward it.

Take the example above for Nationwide. As part of its “Life Comes At You Fast” campaign, the brand took over a parking lot in Columbus, Ohio, and re-created a giant paint spill. This ad certainly grabs attention and I believe most people would say it made them smile at least once. As for marketing effectiveness, my bet is that it wins on both gaining attention and generating a positive feeling for Nationwide. In the highly competitive life insurance game, this small difference could mean a lot.

Here’s another example below for our hometown Cincinnati Cyclones hockey team. A few weeks ago I was walking out of a client’s office and saw this pile of snow on the corner during a 70-degree afternoon, with an advertisement to that evening’s playoff game. Again, it got my attention right away, and it got a smile as well. Heck, I even had a little sense of pride that our local team was in the finals and got out in the community to build some buzz. Plus, $1 beers is meaningful to a lot of us….

The downside to clever outdoor marketing is that it is by nature interruptive - and by forcing everyone to look, they can piss off a hell of a lot of people. In the examples above, for every smile or snicker there may be another cry that these ads are polluting our landscape. Other horror stories abound. Target was taken down on NPR for its pair of ads that placed female legs between a four-lane freeway. Got Milk? ads on bus shelters that put out a cookie scent were pulled in San Francisco after one day. The A&E network was blasted for its ads in New York City that beamed a sound message directly into the skulls of passersby.  These are extreme cases, but sometimes even a company logo can be offensive.

So what’s a marketer to do? Tread carefully. I think the best advice comes from our friends at Millward Brown (full disclosure: a fellow WPP agency and we like them a lot). Dede Fitch, Global Analyst at MB, recommends that marketers ask themselves: “What are you giving your audience?” She suggests that we carefully consider length of exposure, intrusiveness, and viewer mood and mind-set.

At the end of the day, marketing with meaning overall, and the use of clever outdoor creative in particular, depend on marketers’ judgment. That’s why we get paid the big bucks.

UPDATE: I just learned that it is now legal for legal brothels in Nevada to advertise their services in Las Vegas. I guess this opens up an entirely new avenue for meaningful marketing….